Combatting Racism and Disinclusion Through a Movie Camera

The 21st century has brought a number of advances and changes to Hollywood. One of the biggest advances is diversity within the film industry. Whether it’s black actors or crew members, the diversity in this chaotic industry has skyrocketed. 

In the past 20 years, there have been two movie genres that have swept the box office by storm. They are: horror and remakes. Both of these genres have diversified greatly since 2004.

In the horror world, Jordan Peele has dominated the game with his style of horror movies. Peele is an African American actor and director famously known for “Us” (2019), “Get Out” (2017), and “Nope” (2022). He also directed the remake of “Candyman” (2021). 

Peele’s style of horror doesn’t involve much gore but they aim for more discomfort of the mind. “Get Out” is a perfect example of this. While the film has typical horror features, the main theme of “Get Out” is racial discomfort in modern settings. 

Peele maticusly put this underlying theme to not only bring representation and call out racism, but to make the white viewers uncomfortable. It makes you sit there and think “is this really how people think and act?”. 

Another dynamic of Peele’s films is the prodimetly black cast or main characters. This can be seen in all of Peele’s work. 

An honorable mention in the horror world is “Ma” (2019) directed by Tate Taylor. I’m including “Ma” because of the leading actress, Octavia Spencer. Spencer is heavily known for her roles in “The Help” (2011) and “Hidden Figures” (2016). 

In “Ma”, Spencer plays a middle-aged woman who befriends a group of teenagers and lets them party in her basement with a few rules. However, Ma’s hospitality turns into an eerie obsession with the group of teens. 

Spencer is a phenomenal actress in this film and proves that her talent should not go unnoticed. 

Remakes are another major film genre seen in theaters. A major theme within these remakes is that the characters aren’t casted as they were when the movie was originally released. An example of this is “Annie” (2014). 

“Annie” was originally released with Annie being a little girl with fiery red hair, freckles, and white. In 2014, Annie was casted to be played by Quvenzhané Wallis who looks nothing like the original Annie. 

The team behind this remake of Annie included Will Smith, Jayda Pinkett-Smith, Jay-Z, and Will Gluck. They faced some backlash, but persisted. “Annie” was a hit, and paved the way for many filmmakers to take a diversity casting route when looking into reboots. 

Black filmmakers and actors are often overlooked in their ability to do their jobs. Despite this, they still make amazing work and deserve more recognition than they are given. 
But don’t watch “Us” after dark — Peele may have done too good of a job with the psychological factors in this one.

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